slan shack n.

Having settled to our own satisfaction that fans possess a mental superiority, and finding people of that sort much more congenial to have around, we set about devising a means to make such a thing possible. Slan Shack was the result. Perhaps you have heard of it. It does not exist yet, but may any month now. To elucidate, we plan to buy a seven to nine room house, and rent rooms to fans only. Thus we will gradually gather together under one roof a group of Slans. A good-sized room, perhaps in the basement, will be set aside for publishing activities. In a limited way, we will have a sort of perpetual convention.

Recent installation of a telephone has been a great convenience to the club for outgoing calls, as well as for members outside to contact the club at any time of day or night.… The biggest surprise call of them all was the Thursday night meeting that was interrupted (pleasurably) by a phone call from Slan Shack, in Battle Creek, Michigan. [Ibid. 10] Battle Creek calling LASFS! This is Slan Shack!

Last month I went over to the Lewisham slan-shack, and Sandy lent me a couple of Fapa mailings to get rid of me.

One fannish slan shack was run on Objectivist principles, and the smallest, weakest fan in the group ended up doing all the dishes and paying all the rent.

Also renowned for extravagant party-flinging was a slan shack called The Nunnery, a weird, roof-top residence on New York’s fashionable, exclusive Bowery. The previous tenants, it seemed, had been three girls.

There is no Slan Shack here, yet; but maybe, just maybe, with your help…we can establsih [sic] or launch one.

I suppose this is one of the hazards of living in a Slan Shack.

Knight started, face it, as a callow fan, a hanger on, an inhabitant of a so-called ‘slan shack,’ an SF commune of the early 1940s.

On my way to the Pacific, I managed to steal a few hours to visit with a couple of fans in Los Angeles at the Slan Shack near the old Bixel Street LASFS meeting room.… Slan Shack was still active, as was another fannish boarding house, Tendril Towers, across the street.

This Slan Shack—and other similar fan houses—suggests that the true fan response to Slan lay not in its valorization of outsider status but in its utopian desire to organize a coherent new community.